


Day One

by helsinkibaby



Category: FBI (TV 2018)
Genre: F/M, Fictober 2019, First Day, Fluff, Pre Relationship, Pre series
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-22
Updated: 2019-10-22
Packaged: 2020-12-28 15:48:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 514
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21139199
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/helsinkibaby/pseuds/helsinkibaby
Summary: On her first day at work, Kristen needs a moment.





	Day One

**Author's Note:**

> For fictober day 11 “it’s not always like this.”

It wasn’t like Kristen has expected her new job to be easy. No job of FBI analyst was ever easy, especially not in a major field office that contained multiple agencies in one room. 

She’d known it wasn’t going to be easy. 

But she was willing to admit that she’d underestimated just how tough it would be, how the New York Field Office was like New York City itself, a constant buzz and hum of energy suffusing the air, making her heart beat faster, her blood run quicker, her head swim. 

It was exhausting. 

She lasted until mid-afternoon before she had to take a break, find a quiet corridor and stand with her back to the wall, her hands clenched into fists by her side as she breathed deeply. The quiet of the hallway meant she heard footsteps approaching and her heart sank when she saw who it was. 

“You okay?” Jubal’s voice was several decibels lower than she’d heard it all day; it was refreshing to hear that he could actually speak at a normal volume. Before she could reply, he added, “It’s no problem if you need to take a minute... it can get pretty overwhelming in there.” 

That was putting it mildly, but he was so calm, so nice about it that any unease or embarrassment she felt about being caught like this by the ASAC - her boss, in effect - melted away. “Thanks,” she said and he shrugged as he joined her in leaning against the wall. 

“If it’s any consolation,” he told her, “it’s not always like this.”

Kristen tilted her head, grasping the words like a drowning woman clutching a life raft. “Really?” she asked, not sure if he was telling the truth or lying to make her feel better, and even less sure that she cared. 

“Really.” His lips twitched, his eyes danced, but his voice stayed level. “Sometimes it’s crazy.” 

So deadpan was his delivery that it took a second for the punch to land; when it did, Kristen did the only thing she could, the very thing she was supposed to do. She laughed, quietly because of where they were, but no less sincere for that. He chuckled too. It was a nice sound. “I’ll keep that in mind.”

“Be sure you do.” His voice was as warm as his smile and really quite pleasant when he wasn’t bellowing orders across the room. It was a thought that Kirsten pushed out of her head as quickly as it arrived - Jubal was the ASAC, and her boss and she didn’t need to be thinking about him as anything other than that. “You ready to go back in there?”

She was, so she nodded. “Let’s go,” she said, pushing herself away from the wall and falling into step beside him. 

Somehow, once she got back to her desk, the room seemed a little calmer, the pace a little more manageable. 

And when she caught Jubal’s eyes across the room, if her heart beat a little faster, if her head began to swim, well, she could handle that too.


End file.
